Revived South County Mosque Project Stokes Islamophobia

A congregation of South County Muslims who meet in an old barn want to build a permanent Islamic center in San Martin.

For a small but vocal band of self-styled patriots, the Cordoba Center poses an existential threat. They fear the two-story mosque planned for a 16-acre steppe of San Martin will bring Islam one step closer to world domination.

To defend the town of 7,000 from Muslim conquest, the Tea Party-spawned Gilroy-Morgan Hill Patriots have turned to an old ally, Peter Friedman. The soi-disant quranic scholar retired from the aviation trade a few years back to become a firearms instructor, Napoleon buff and anti-mosque crusader. Come Friday, the impassioned crier behind IslamThreat.com will swing by the town Lion’s Club to lecture flag-waving nativists on “What the Mosque Represents and the Threat of Islam.”

Friedman isn’t alone in seeing the Cordoba Center as an ominous symbol of the second largest religion behind Christianity. In a March 6 blog titled “Rural mosque or Trojan horse?” writer Janet Levy echoed his call for caution, likening the future mosque to an outpost in a holy war.

“Does this project represent a benign construction of a house of worship?” she muses on a conservative website American Thinker. “[Or is it] yet another orchestrated effort to oust traditional American values and replace them with Islamic practices, laws and beliefs?”

“They are the loud ones,” says Abbass, whose group recently revived the mosque project after trying to build it for the better part of a decade. “From day one, they turn to the same old tactics of Islam-bashing and fear mongering.”

Small-town Islamophobia is nothing new, of course. Before a lawsuit sidelined the Cordoba Center in 2012, hearings on the mosque grew so heated that police had to escort a number of hijab-wearing women to their cars.

Four years later, the congregation has started anew. But in a political culture marked by talk of a registry for Muslims and religious screening for Syrian refugees, Abbass senses a sharper edge to the discourse.

At a Feb. 25 meeting in a Morgan Hill community center, more than 200 people showed up to see the expanded scope of the mosque, with its attendant playground, campground, cultural center and cemetery. Nearly 30 of them took to the podium to voice reasonable misgivings about traffic, aesthetics and pollution.

“I’m concerned about the impact on water,” San Martin denizen Karen Harley said, “and the impact on the peacefulness of our community.”

Several attendees called the scale of the Cordoba Center—with its 8,938-square-foot mosque and 14,548-square-foot meeting hall—out of place in bucolic San Martin. They hoisted signs with the bold-lettered insistence that “SIZE MATTERS.”

Others waxed indignant about less temporal concerns, like the nature of Islam. Admissions of fighting the mosque for religious reasons elicited claps, shouts and jeers from the crowd. They called Islam destructive, incapable of coexisting with other faiths. One man suggested that a mosque would incite terrorism in unincorporated South County. A man and a woman uttered thinly veiled threats about how rabbit hunters might accidentally shoot kids running around the mosque.

Anxieties over the Cordoba Center reflect a broader backlash against building minority religious spaces. The Pew Research Center, which keeps track of such disputes, found a nationwide uptick in the number of campaigns against mosque construction.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which protects faith-based assemblies from restrictive zoning. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has since kept a close eye on local compliance as the number of mosques more than doubled to 2,100 by the 10th anniversary of the mandate.

During the last half of 2010, the DOJ launched more investigations into anti-mosque conflicts than it had in the previous nine years combined. Investigators often found ideological gripes couched in concerns about zoning, parking or environmental impacts. In Santa Clara County, however, the backlash stems not from local government but outspoken neighbors.

The Santa Clara-based Muslim Community Association found itself in a similar predicament six years ago when plans to build a 64-foot minaret drew the ire of a businessman. His appeal called the tower incompatible with the locale. But in public hearings on the matter, detractors railed more against Islam than architecture.

Controversy over the Cordoba Center erupted from the get-go. The SVIC formed in the late 1990s, when a handful of Muslim families grew tired of the rush-hour commute to the nearest mosque in Santa Clara. Initially, they met in a rented office and then a ramshackle barn, where they remain to this day.

Inside the "prayer hall" of the SVIC's barn mosque.

The “barn mosque,” as Akhter calls it, sits on a dirt plot surrounded by goats, ponies and jerry-built fences. For larger holiday services, the group rents a Morgan Hill community center.

Abbass says it became clear early on that the assembly of about 100 families needed a permanent home. By 2006, they pooled enough money to buy land at Monterey Road and California Avenue. They named their mosque after the Spanish city of Cordoba, the Moorish capital once deemed Europe’s “Jewel of the Middle Ages.”

In 2012—after six years of lobbying, fundraising and emotionally fraught debate—the county Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the mosque and rejected an appeal from neighbors. But a group called the People’s Coalition for Government Accountability sued, forcing SVIC to table the project. Until now.

All the while, SVIC refined its plans. The latest iteration proposes a larger mosque and community hall, a caretaker’s cottage and maintenance shed. Outside the cluster of buildings, blueprints show a cemetery, playground and campground. An orchard would buffer traffic, while native landscaping would blend the parcel’s southern edge with surrounding countryside.

Having reintroduced the project, developers can now prepare for an environmental review, says Donald Sobelman, SVIC’s pro bono attorney. Once the study wraps up in another year or so, county planning commissioners and supervisors will vote on use and cemetery permits. Meanwhile, the public will have plenty of chances to weigh in.

SVIC trustees say they’re heartened by support from pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders. Rabbi Debbie Israel, who leads Morgan Hill’s Congregation Emeth, denounced some of the remarks at last month’s meeting as un-American, ignorant and xenophobic.

Abbass says he welcomes debate about the merits of the project. But he knows enough to keep his guard up, he adds, noting the flyer for Friedman’s conspiracy-tinged seminar.

“That tells you that for some people it’s not the water, not the cemetery, not the noise,” Abbass says. “It has everything to do with religious bigotry.”

39 Comments

It’s not like San Jose is much better. A Buddhist temple drew the ire of some East foothills residents a few months back Jen did you ever do a follow up on that story? I think there was a BOS meeting, but I didn’t check out what became of it.

Maybe, instead of calling it a “Mosque”, you called it a “Sharia law activist center” for agitating against Constitutional protections like women’s rights, and First Amendment protections for non-Muslims and libertarians,. . . then maybe John Galt wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about it.

You can be theoretically right, Johnny, but theory by itself is not going to preserve your Constitutional rights.

If President Hillary or President Bernie puts three more Ruth Bader Ginsburgs on the Supreme Court, you could likely be sued out of all your earthly possessions and put in debtor’s prison for “denying” climate change.

I know, You can show Ruthie your dog eared copy of your Cato Institute pocket constitution where it says you have “free speech”, but you still go directly to jail without passing Go.

Bottom line, the politics of free speech are as important as asserting your legal rights.

SJOTB,
I’ve worked with and volunteered with several Muslims over the years – and patronized Muslim businesses when I lived in Europe (only businesses open on Sundays). As a group, I’ve found Muslims more aligned with American values than some fundamentalist Christians or conservative Jews I’ve known. FWIW, I’m including black Muslims (Nation of Islam) followers too. Have had them escort me in neighborhoods where my race could invite an attack.

But let’s assume all Muslims are antithetical to constitutional protections and vocal in their opposition. Last time I checked the First Amendment gives them (and the rest of us) that right. Any different from “rights for me, but not for thee”?

If a Jew or a Christian did not have the money to pay both Federal Income taxes and jizya, could the Moslem “authorities” collect their jizya by force and allow the IRS to prosecute the Jew or Christian for tax delinquency?

> Last time I checked the First Amendment gives them (and the rest of us) that right.

I assume you referring to the purported “free speech rights” of Muslims, But if you were asserting “free exercise of religion rights” in their behalf, I would like to know why you think Islam is a “religion”?

Is it because they say they speak for “God”?

Can a religion say “You need to pay your jizya before you pay your federal taxes, and if you run out of money to pay your income tax, too bad for the feds”?

I can’t imagine the IRS sitting still for that:

“You’re not paying your taxes because Allah told you to pay the Mosque first?! NO EFFING WAY!!!”

Your comment reflects a misunderstanding of the intent and meaning of the 1st Amendment and its establishment clause. The founders simply intended to prevent the ‘state’ or government from establishing a national religion. This was largely in answer to how the British crown kicked out the catholic church and established the Anglican church as the state religion in order to solidify their notion of the divine right of kings/royalty.

What the 1st Amendment does not do is exempt this mosque – or any other place of worship from having to go through the same examinations and processes that any construction project also has to. It also does not exempt the adherents from being subject to the same laws as all the rest of us. Adherents cannot have Islamist or terrorist ties. They cannot support organisations which do – which, by definition means that they should not be allowed to support CAIR in any way since that organizations ties to terrorism have been well established. Furthermore, their practice of their faith cannot be permitted to supersede all the other laws of the land. Sharia law cannot supersede criminal law. They should not be allowed to have multiple wives, unless other religious groups are also permitted to. They also cannot do things like practice female genital mutilation, which is widespread in much of the Muslim world, and also, clandestinely practiced in Europe and the US, against the laws of those nations.

As someone who was born in the Middle East I have to say that Islam and mosques do not fit into the fabric of this country. Religious utopia is a fantasy. You can not build a church or have a short skirted lady walk down the street in Saudi Arabia it just does not belong in that culture. A new mosque is planting the seed for a future religious civil war . I will be a permanent resident of Oak Hill by then but be forewarned ” various religiouns can never peacefully coexist “. I don’t need to list the countries with such chaos ongoing now….

We have seen the results of islamic INVASION — not immigration — into our lands in Paris, Madrid and now Brussels. Why should we risk playing Russian roulette by bringing in more Muslims or allowing them to open up mosques? Why do our children have to pay for reckless stupid mistakes in the name of “tolerance” and “Liberalism” when these muslims murder feminists, Jews, homosexuals and even fellow muslims?

How many more 9/11, Ft. Hood, Los Angeles Airport, San Berdinano attacks must we have to endure? I say NO to muslim INVASION and NO to any new mosques being built!! Even Switzerland, Japan and Angola have wisely enacted such laws in their lands. Why can’t we?

Last time I heard this about this subject, the controversy was over the accompanying cemetery that was likely going to contaminate ground water, wells and that leaches into the adjoining creek that flows into coyote creek.

I really don’t give a hoot about the religious aspect of this story but contaminating our drinking water with dead people is really disgusting.

By the way, because of the creek that’s also a flood zone.

These bodies are traditionally wrapped in cloth, not sealed in a coffin.
Build the mosque put the dead someplace else.

It is about time churches and other houses of worship lost non-profit tax status. They take so much money to fill their coffers, it is audacious. Muslims are obligated to tithe 10% of their income to their mosque. A huge mosque will only perpetuate the myths prevalent in our society. No longer is a church the center of a town, and a mosque or synagogue should not be, either. We are a secular nation, and should remain so, without any one religious group exerting dominance in the form of a house of worship. The church spire used to be the tallest structure in town. You see it all over Europe, but those days of subjugation, thankfully, are over. We must keep it that way.

The Cordoba Center will be named for Cordoba, Spain. Cordoba was the heart of Muslim-controlled Spain. It is now part of a reconquista fantasy of Muslims who want to retake parts of Europe for Islam.

Cordoba is famous for the dozens of Christians who were beheaded there by Muslim authorities for the crime of publicly stating that they were Christian. Cordoba made all non-Muslims second-class citizens, subject to forced labor and punitive taxes. Christians in Cordoba were compelled to help build the great mosque of Cordoba by Muslims.

What an interesting name for the Muslim community to choose for their mosque.

Hating Jewish people is ingrained in their religion and their brains. Mosques equal places to cultivate this hatred. It’s quite sick. No to the mosque. No to their rabid ingrained hatred. Santa Clara County is better than this.

Jews and Arabs are Semitic and have a fair amount in common. Jews and Muslims lived together fairly peacefully in the middle east for centuries and later in Europe after the 8th century Muslim invasion. They coexisted for about 700 years in Europe until the battle of Granada. Beautifully preserved and highly recommend visiting. On balance, Jews received much better treatment from Muslims than from Christians.

Fast forward 525 years. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are more aligned than Russia and the US appear to be. The terrorist acts in Israel stem from Palestinians and sympathizers rather than some type of anti-Israel intifada by Arab states.

Historically there’s been much more friction between Protestants and Catholic Christians, and between Sunni and Shia Muslims than between Jews and Muslims. In the twentieth century, it’s continued in Ireland. While not as violent, Jews and Catholics faced wide scale employment and housing discrimination in the US during the 19th and first half of the 20th century by Protestants.

Property deed restrictions were common at least through the 1950’s to prevent sale or rental. Kennedy had to overcome fear mongering. Many believed he was a 5th columnist for the Pope. Once elected, the Vatican would be moved to Washington, D.C. it was feared.

If you read this brief history of Cordoba, Spain, that I Googled, one wonders about the choice of naming the mosque Cordoba. It may have been great for Muslims, but so great for anyone else.

” The Romans (206 B.C.E.) built the original city on the most strategic site of the Guadalquivir River. From Cordoba, they shipped Spanish olive oil, wine and wheat back to Rome. They built the mighty bridge that spans the river, El Puente Romano. But the city’s greatest glory was to be achieved under the Moors (711). Cordoba became the capital of El Andalus and was destined to become a center of Moorish art, architecture, philosophy and poetry.

The city’s most famous landmark, Mezquita, or Great Mosque, was one of the largest in all Islam. An investigation into the history of this magnificent structure reveals the checkered story of Cordoba’s past. The Romans built a pagan temple on the site which was destroyed by the Visigoths (400 – 711) when they conquered Spain. In its stead, the Goths erected a church for St. Vincent which, in turn, was razed by the victorious Moors, who set to work building the Mezquita. The spectacular landmark took more than 200 years to complete and more than 1,000 pillars of granite, onyx, marble and jasper support its arches. When the Christians seized the city in 1236 they were awed by the beauty of the mosque and decided to build a cathedral in the midst of its columns and arches. Another famous monument is the Alcazar, or Fortress, which was constructed by the Christians in 1326.”

I’ve visited Cordoba multiple times when I lived in Europe. Unesco world heritage sites – too much to absorb in 1 visit. Am sufficiently fluent to comprehend more complete descriptions in Spanish than in English by multilingual tour guides.

But actually visiting isn’t a prerequisite for gaining an understanding. Read the Wikipedia article a bit further.

Cordoba was conquered multiple times by different groups before the Moorish conquest. It became the most sophisticated and largest city in Europe under Moorish rule. Like Alexandria Egypt, it was known for art, architecture, libraries, universities, and scholarship. Internecine warfare among Arab tribes – similar to the collapse of the Roman empire – resulted in over a 90% population loss and wide-scale destruction.

If a mosque called Cordoba is disturbing, then consider other parallels. Chicago (an Indian name) was originally inhabited by the Potawatomi tribe, conquered and land seized in 1803 by the US Army. There are a number of place names incorporating Chicago (e.g.,Port Chicago, CA). But doubt that many know of the slaughter by US troops or subsequent Potawatomi revenge (Ft. Dearborn massacre – plaque on Michigan Ave site). Or decided to use the name Chicago to honor genocide.

There are other parallels too. Iberian residents were about as sophisticated as North American Indian tribes compared to English settlers. By contrast, Moors treated Iberian native people much better than English and US settlers did Indians. Parallels to the European conquest by pagan Romans too.

Cordoba seems like a reasonable name to honor the apogee of Moorish civilization and benefits Europe accrued as a result.

Has nothing to do with Islamophobia. but typical of liberal rag to say it this way. Numerous Mosque are watched by our LE community. People have to ask why anyone would follow a cult/religion that supports killing others, killing of gays, demeaning of woman.

Thanks to Jennifer Wadsworth for asking for my contact information, receiving it and then not making any attempt to contact me, i.e. both sides, thus showing how truly biased your reporting is. As for truth, your information on Peter Friedman is incorrect, but I’ll leave that for you to correct should you chose too. As for the rest of your article, we taught from the words of Islam, via the Koran. The exact words of allah from the book. Hard to argue with what allah says. It’s easy to write opinions from a biased perspective when you are illiterate on a subject. You seem to come from the opinion that these local Muslims from SVIC know all and relate the truth to you about Islam. Truth be told, they are not policy makers, treaty signators or heads of the O.I.C. who determine what Isalm is about and they do not dictate policy. Those who can are who you should be quoting. Officials who make the rules, not local Muslims. But why do you fail to state the whole truth when writing what actually occurred? Like, how SVIC tried to get their Cordoba Mosque project by with failed percolation tests and no Environmental Impact Report? Truth is, the residents sued and the judge ruled SVIC is now required to get an E.I.R. Is that Islamophobia based? As for the support from ignorant religious leaders, they obviously haven’t read “Interfaith Dialogue, a guide for Muslims” or they would understand how they are being used. They have bought into the Cultural Marxist re-definition of tolerance promoted by Muslims which is an attack on Western thinking. It is designed to redefine tolerance from it’s classic definition. Example: Classic definition: I believe you have the right to practice your religion & you have a right to expect I’ll give you that right to practice your religion BUT I don’t have to accept your belief. In fact, I don’t believe it or appreciate it… versus the Cultural Marxist re-definition: I believe what you believe is EVERY BIT AS VALUABLE AS WHAT I BELIEVE. The second negates your own belief and denies your own belief while affirming others and makes your belief only as valuable as something you KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. How insane is that? Jennifer, I’ll let you in on something: All that Islam is and says they are is on the internet. You just have to take the time to look it up. Try starting with “An Explanatory Memorandum on the general strategic goal for the group in North America”. It tells you exactly what Islam plans for the West are and in fact names their friends on page 18 – By the way, #1 friend is ISNA – who happens to be funding the SVIC Cordoba Project Mosque.

Jen, your bias is showing through. Islamaphobia, by definition, would be an irrational or illogical fear of Islam and its practitioners. But if it is unreasonable, then why do so many people and groups of people have legitimate reasons to fear Islam and Muslims? To wit:

1. Islam promotes the hatred of homosexuals (which, today, would have to include the entirety of the LGBTQ community. While many would, rightly point to the Old Testament and assert, rightfully, that the ‘Old Covenant’ was not kind to homosexuals, nowhere in the New Testament will you find exhortations of violence or death toward homosexuals, despite homosexuality being referred to as a sin. By contrast, in the Muslim world and in Islamic texts, not only is homosexuality condemned, but Muslims are encouraged to do violence against homosexuals even to the point of death

2. Islam past and present encourages conversion by any means possible of anyone who is not already muslim. Although many apologists for Islam deceitfully describe ‘jihad’ as the struggle of the devout muslim against sin, the reality is that Islamic holy texts are replete with exhortations to conquer, convert or kill anyone who is not a follower of the so-called ‘religion of peace’.

3. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, women are particularly vulnerable to predation by the followers of Islam. Although mainstream media has done a poor job of documenting these realities, the truth is that – especially in Europe – wherever you see significant communities of Muslim immigrants in Europe, you will see increased rates of crime: drug use, violent crime and sex crimes. The Rotherham rape scandal never saw enough play in the media. And, I bet no readers here have heard of the Muslim rape gangs in Oxfordshire (http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5386/british-girls-raped-oxford). And in Sweden, between 1985 and 2005, coinciding with immigration from Muslim countries, reports of rape increased by 300% overall and by 600% among child victims 16 and younger. In fact, you could do a search for ‘Muslim, rape, and the European country of your choice: France, Germany, Denmark, Britain, etc. etc. and you will find that in every country, Islamic immigration has has almost invariable carried with it increases in crimes involving sex, violence and drug use. And the truth of the matter is that the rape and enslavement of non-Muslim women is a practice that is encouraged in the Quran. (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/muhammad/rape.aspx). Non-Muslim women and girls become property by right of conquest. Their marriages are dissolved and they may be owned and raped by their new, Muslim, owners.

5. Lastly, anyone who isn’t Muslim is at risk of being victimized by the adherents of Islam – at least if the more militant among them had their way. The truth is that there is no point in the history of Islam wherein its adherents have lived in widespread peace with non-Muslims. Those who say ‘jihad’ simply means the struggle of a Muslim against sin are either deluded or trying to deceive the ignorant. From its inception, conquest, conversion by the sword, enslavement and death have been institutionalize aspects of the practice of Islam and they are in widespread practice today: Al Quaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Darul Islam, Fretilin, the New People’s Army, the Abu Sayyaf Group, the Bangsomoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. These are just a small sampling of Islamist terror groups operating globally. And, here in America, FBI Director James Comey stated in Nov. 2015 that there are over 900 separate ISIS related terror investigations operating concurrently and in every state in the Union.

Mosques are – or can be – an integral part of radicalizing Muslim Adherents. The Clarion Project and The Daily Caller Identified over 80 mosques which have radicalized adherents. Three of them are in the SF Bay Area. How can anyone know whether this proposed mosque in San Martin will NOT support radicalization or encourage terrorism? We cannot take the word of those who are trying to build it. Why do I say this? Because, just as jihad is institutionalized in the religion, so, too, is taqiyya, or deception of the unbelievers, as explained here: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/taqiyya.aspx

Thank you OfficerAnonymous for your input. I find it interesting how Jennifer sited the PEW Institutes statistics regarding backlash but left out all other PEW Institute finding regarding the outrageous percentages of Muslims worldwide (including U.S.) who sympathize and support suicidal bombers, honor killings, killing of those who leave the Muslim faith, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSPvnFDDQHk&list=FLtgx62JYkfRmwox1uzo_Orw